Hello, everyone, and welcome to Shoujo, the anime recap and discussion podcast where I, Sarah, introduce my friend, Jo, here to Shoujo anime, which is anime typically targeting girls. And so I've seen it. And Joe has not as much so. And his name's Joe and we're seeing Shojo. So Shojo, best name ever. I haven't, I haven't compliment given us a pat on the back in a while for that one. So let's just throw that in there. Yeah. So sup Joe. Before we jump into Chihayafuru,
the current series we're covering, let's. Um. Was it shoot this? No, shoot. Yeah, that's right. It's a shit. That's what that's what they say. I don't know why they say that. But some some people do say that. OK. Old, old men say old men. We're turning into the old men podcast. It's it's Pride Month. So we're going to. Oh, yeah. I don't know, I didn't have a transition for that, as to why we'd be old men in that case. I guess we're dating ourselves by doing that.
It's some year in the future, who knows? In 10 years, when you're listening to this. Well, bury recordings in a time capsule. That's right, yep. Because apparently people, I don't know, there's some dumb like, oh, anime's gonna be banned in Texas, so I'll just bury it for... in the woods for children to discover like they did with porn in the 80s. I'm so like. We're going to ban anime in Texas. It's like more nuanced, but it's probably just bullshit, but I feel like. Maybe they should.
Why do I have to move to Ohio? Maybe that's good. Yeah. You know, anime. You know, some people have been saying it's maybe a mistake. So who knows? No, I think it's like just anime that like have basically anime with anything that could be interpreted as like minors wearing skimpy clothing, which is like a lot of cutesy girls. Yeah. So if your skirt's too short, I don't know. I don't know. This is probably just all like amic. But whatever. I'll find a way. I don't
do anything illegal, but I can start. That does remind me that I did listen to like a little thing on a podcast I listened to called NeverPost where they talked about hentai on the Internet and how it doesn't really fit in anywhere because it's not like It's explicit, but it's not like pornographic in like the traditional sense So porn websites regulations can't really take it because you have to do things when you like put stuff on porn websites like prove It's you who's
posting it But for animation, it's like how do you prove that this that you animated this you have to like show them like a time lapse of you drawing it and stuff like that. Like it's really hard to do that stuff. And like normally you also need to have like written, you know, approval from all of the like actors in it, but it's like, okay, how do I get approval for? Oh man. Or cartoon. Like what are we doing here? So like it just
doesn't fit into stuff. Yeah. I don't know. It would have been just that it was something that was sold in like the adult section back in the day, but online. distribution and streaming of it does seem, I don't, I mean, I don't know very much about anti, but like, it's not like a dying breed or anything. No, they make a lot of it.
It's just like one of those things where, I mean, even like the weird stuff you associated with, like the tentacles thing, it's that to get around regulation about what can be shown and what can't be shown. That's why it's tentacles. It's all a really weird thing and it is apparently still weird and still a thing. Yeah, I mean it's like it's mostly a problem of like how do you monetize it effectively like you can get it on sites But the question is like can you get paid for it?
Can you? You know get into their little like partnership programs or whatever like that's the part where it just doesn't pay off as much Which is why I think they still like in practice sell it on like DVDs and stuff like that Just get a VPN, what are you doing? No This thing's so complicated. It's totally legal. I know, because the Love Island podcast I used to listen to, they would like try to do it, you know, the legal way. So they would try to use VPN, but they always
said it sucked. I mean, for some streaming, it can. Like I have a VPN service and I use it to watch like. Um, well, cause like a lot, like a lot of times like streaming platforms that don't like have stuff in the U S have it in Canada. So I'll just connect to Canada and then I'll watch it. It's easy. Allegedly. I would never do that. Copyright lawyers. Also, if you're a copyright lawyer, stop listening to this. I don't like you. I think I have one on my, uh, we have
one for. Oh yeah. I mean, that makes sense is your, your company that has a copyright. I would understand that. Don't listen to my podcast. Listen, I don't dislike you as a person. Don't listen to my podcast. OK. Go listen to something else. Don't worry. They're not. Yeah, quite OK. So yes, Shoujo anime may be what we're covering, but that does not mean we're keeping our content sugary sleep. I literally thought you were about to say the next thing we're going to watch is
hentai. I'm like, I'm sorry, are we? What's happening here? No, no, absolutely not. No. No. Although there is. No, OK. Hold on, there's what? Oh, I was going to say there's like a smutty Jose manga that I bet there is as they have like a short little like tiny, as short as little anime. Episodes, I think I saw. Uh huh. Okay. Yeah, so I guess... I don't know. It seems like it's all just the gross dude stuff, but maybe there's some lady hentai out there. Lady targeted stuff.
I bet there is, yeah. Anyways. I bet there is. Yeah, anyway. My dad came to visit me. Yeah, how was that? So I was hanging out with my dad for like... Five days a week or something like that. It was good. Just had to go around a couple of places. It was kind of awkward because like he left on Monday, which is like the day because that was his last day. I guess he left on Tuesday, but like everything's closed on Monday. So it was like not a very like fun day particularly.
That's just like when a lot of stores are like like restaurants and stuff are closed. They just had the weekend and stuff like that. It's like Monday and Tuesday for. Is it? OK, I was going to say. My favorite sushi place does that on their clothes on Sundays, but the only place I know of here that's really closed on Mondays is one animal shelter. I used to work at Yeah stuff closes on because they'll don't want to
be open on Sunday. So they'll close on like a Monday or Tuesday or so See that makes sense. Yeah While he was here we watched all four John wick movies, uh -huh. I had number four before. It was good. It was interesting watching them all kind of in a row because you can really tell like when things started to shift or like what each movie added in terms of like shifting. OK, like the focus of it. All I know about this movie is that in the first one, we're avenging a puppy,
which I love. I don't know. I've never seen any of that. You think so? OK, what do you think Rina Sawayama is in? Is there like a - She's in the last one. Okay, see, I - I guess you probably can't watch them out of order, huh? Uh, I mean, you could, but nah. It's not as fulfilling of a - No, it's not really gonna - I mean, yeah, not really. You probably could. I've heard only good things, so. I just don't like to do shooting stuff movies. They're typically very boring to
me. Well, this is like all about action choreography like stuff. Oh, okay. so basically like if you like you should watch the first one if you like what they're doing there you should keep watching the rest of them because it's just like more of that but escalating gotcha okay um sweet okay well uh any any what else are you up to any anything else um i mean i tried to get your dad to watch anime with you no my dad was not gonna watch anime with me i don't think yeah My mom never
does well either. I was able to get my grandpa too. Oh. He watched all of the first season of the original Full Metal Alchemist anime with me. Wow, that's pretty good. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah. So that was me. What have you been up to? Do you have anything fun over the weekend? Yes,
well, yes. OK, so I went to DreamCon in Houston this weekend Well, I got there Friday morning and left Sunday afternoon, but basically there's this player who goes to a bunch of conventions and has a large scale demo operation for VR. And one of the games that they have for people to try out is Walkabout. And so since it was nearby and he offered a badge and hotel and stuff, I was like... Heck yeah, I'll go. You know, it's
only like a two and a half hour drive. You know, I'll just go and like talk, you know, chat up people about Walkabout for a bit. And then the rest of the time I can kind of like go explore the convention. Turned out they were super understaffed. So I ended up like just working so much. But I did still manage. So I didn't like attend any panels or anything. Um, but I was able to go to, uh, the like vendor artist alley, which, uh, was a little small, which is probably for
the best for my wallet. Um, but yeah, it's so for anyone who doesn't know dream con is very much like, uh, I guess it was started by a group
or was it RDC world or something. Um, But basically it's like very much kind of a like black communal or community nerdy stuff And it's had like a bunch of different or it's been to a bunch of different cities So I'm not sure if it's just like a constantly traveling one or if it's just still trying to find its home But it's the best Energy, I would say I've seen at a convention one I loved because everyone was cosplaying older anime. So it's like I recognize things a lot
more I saw a lot of Soul Eater cosplays. I saw a lot of Inuyasha cosplays. Really? Let's see. Yes. That's weird. OK. I know. I was like, this is great, because normally just people just get their crappy little Amazon, you know, like. Oh, we're going to need them. OK, sorry. No, demon. Well, like Demon Slayer. Whatever is the most popular thing right now, right? Yeah. So I, yeah, it was really cool to see. I'm trying to think of there was like a doodle bob, like from Sponge
Bob, the little doodle bob. So you have like a giant pencil, you know, like things like that. And so it was fun seeing all that. I guess Meg Lee Stallion was supposed to be there. I didn't get a chance to see because I don't I'm not understanding in lines. Yeah, that's fair. But yeah, just a very, like, people were, like, excited to be there and talk to each other, because sometimes that feels like cons, like, it's, you know, oh, we're a bunch of awkward little nerds who don't
like talking to each other. Yeah, I mean, like, having like a TV show you both like isn't exactly a huge conversation starter, it turns out, all the time. Yeah. but yeah, so it was exhausting, but I had a good time and Yeah, so I'm back from that Love Island starts tonight The US one and then UK starts like a week or two after So there's gonna be like a lot of Love Island in my future and I wish they would like not overlap though I really need them not to so I can like space
it out. Gotta be over the summer though. Big Brother will start in July and then that'll get me through October with Reality Show and then Survivor will have a winter season I guess so I will have I'll have like a week where there wasn't a Reality Show for me to watch live and then I'm on season like 14 maybe of Survivor rewatch and I'm like nearly to the point where I remember watching in high school so it'll be interesting to see how much I can remember from
those but I'm like in love with the last season I watched Cook Islands okay it's like one of the things there's like Definitely not something that would happen on really TV today, but they like had four tribes at the beginning of different ethnicities. So there's like the Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic or Latino and African American tribes.
And I was like, OK, survivor. Let's see, but but my The like a k -pop I will not know he's too buff to be a k -pop idol But this super handsome Korean guy who is so nice You know and he won Yeah, so I'm like yeah, okay. Hopefully he comes back for some like All -star Uh, there's only been one so far. Okay. And you're on 14? But I was looking at upcoming seasons. Yeah. So I think maybe around 16 or 17, there's another one, but it won't be called All -Stars. There,
no. Oh God. There's one like fans versus favorites as a season coming up. So I guess it's just going to be some, it's probably going to be some like here's the veterans. They'll be your drive, you know, leader, show, blah, blah, blah, something like that. And. Well, because I feel like high school was around the stride where you kind of had like professional reality TV people. There's still some people like that. Yeah. Although I'm starting to learn because they just write because
Survivor 50. Comes out next year, I think, and. They've been, like, hyping it up the past couple seasons of, like, vote on this part of what the game's gonna be, you know, immunity idols or no immunity idols. And so they've been, like, hyping up season 50 seasons before it happens, and they just dropped the cast announcement. And some people are like, oh, I'm surprised so -and -so wasn't on there. And I guess it looks
like... I mean, obviously it's like... Uh, TV is not going to be like, treat you well kind of industry, but I guess a lot of producers on shows are like, Oh, if, or at least it seems to be the case with Jeff Probst, maybe the host and producer or survivor that if you went on other reality shows, then you weren't really considered unless you were like a super favorite person. Cause I don't know if it's like, Oh,
You already went and did your thing. So no need to bring you back for this, even though that's what fans would want is like kind of icky feeling. And I guess MTV is also, I think folks get a hard, or at least the challenge cast. It just seems like they very much play favorites. And so you get, even if you're like a fan favorite, you still can like be set up for failure within the game. Production doesn't like you. So yeah. Uh, yeah. Okay. Uh, maybe we should talk about
some anime now. Yeah, I guess we could do that. Oh, okay. I guess. I guess we could talk about Chihaya Fury Season 2. I listened to the last episode right before this. Uh -huh. And then I listened to our coverage of the Rosa Versailles movie again, because that one is always extremely funny. I get owned in those episodes from last episode where I was like... One, I was like, I'm sure the thing about having five recruits
doesn't matter. And also, I'm like, surely they're going to do some kind of training arc and we're not just immediately going to go into more tournament play. Mm hmm. It's not what happens now. I'm here to report that is not what happens in these three episodes. Yeah. We open on Chihaya being bummed about losing the high school tournament her sister is like what you're still on about Carta I didn't even know you still did that. What's up with that? Her name is Chitose. It
took me a while to remember that. Chitose says that if you can't get results, you don't have talent. She says, obviously projecting. She looks at some of her haters on social media posts and tells her mom that she's going to cut back on work as a model. slash TV personality, I guess, to go to college because she probably doesn't have what it takes to be an actress. Jihaya thinks about if she can accomplish her dreams or not as the OP plays. Well, we get her sister back
and her sister back. I was kind of hoping you would have like because I didn't read all the comments left online, but I'm like, it wasn't funny to read through those. Yeah, I didn't do that. No, you're good. And yeah, let's. Go ahead. We return to literature class where an old man coughs into my ear over and over and over again. And it's a scene that feels like a million years long. He tells the students that they must pass a test or they're going to have to write 20 short
poems. Then he goes to Shihaya just in the middle of class and tells her that she only recruited two out of five members. So they're going to have to share the space with the concert band club, which is a club and not a class, which confuses me. Nishina's like, Chihaya, you gotta stand up for us. He can't just give away our class, but she totally folds, just apologizes and begs to keep the room till nationals. And the teacher, I guess, agrees. I hate this man.
I hate their teacher. I hate this old man. Keel over and die. Oh my God, Joe. In the hallway, we see that the concert band has so many members and stuff that they have to store things in the hallway because they're out of space. We cut to the Carta team telling their coach that they want the concert band to use the second floor to store their stuff. And the coach is like, I mean, we don't really have to. Like, he just said that, but we could probably strong arm him.
Like, I got it. But Chihaya says that they feel bad for the concert band club. Also. You know, if they make a lot of noise, that would help them prepare for situations when there's loud noises while they're playing. And maybe it would be good to, like, have some distractions. So everyone's like, oh, Chihaya, this is actually a selfish request. We thought you were being altruistic, but it turns out you were trying to use this to your own benefit, which honestly,
in this case, I think is fair. I think Chihaya is in the right here. Yeah, I mean, they should. How could they expect anything else from her? She's just trying. be a glass half full kind of gal. Yeah. She's got to have the pep energy as the as the team mascot. Yep. It's correct. This is dumb that she's the captain. She absolutely does nothing that would require that name. But that's like a real position right like I know
It's like it's a position. It's not like Tai Chi is the actual as the president or whatever
The card is the mascot. Sorry. Yes. She is The card a club meets and the concert band is making a bunch of noise on the second floor moving stuff, but they put up with it Later she high goes home her dad's like, oh, hey, you were in the paper and he shows her a article about them losing the finals But she is not into it because she's mad that they lost but then her mom gets an idea The next day at the Carter Club Samira is able to beat two out of three of Tsukuba's brothers
They tease her and she gets mad then Tai Chi shows up and she snaps out of being mad and starts to be sweet immediately because she's great After practice, Tsukuba talks to Samire saying how fun playing Carta is, and Samire is like, what are you talking about? Playing Carta isn't that fun, it's kind of a huge pain, and I also don't win very often. I'm only here for Taichi, because she's serious about love, as everybody else is
about Carta. Even though she's not really in love with him, because she doesn't know him. Listen, she just needs to stay in the show. I don't care. I don't care what her excuse is. She needs to be in the show. She needs more airtime. I don't care. Well, we haven't had anyone on the main cast leave the show, so I'm guessing she'll be here forever. That's true. But like, is Nasheeda really still in it? Only when they need something new to talk about, then they give
him a problem. We cut to Chihaya and her mom going shopping, because we get to hang out with Chihaya's mom. I wish I knew what her name was. Mom. Yep, at least she's a she. I mean, she doesn't. Well, get to it. At least she acknowledges fast. Yeah, Chihaya isn't into shopping until her mom brings her to Kana's parents shop. Her mom talks to Kana's mom because she's brought another thank -you gift for helping out with the Karda Club.
Chi Hai is like, wait a minute, you've been giving her thank -you gifts for helping out with the Karda Club? And her mom's like, well yeah, obviously she's like helping out a lot. But Kana's mom says it's fine because she's basically using Chi Hai and Tai Chi as like walking advertisements anyway, so this is kind of benefiting me mostly. Kana's mom starts to return to work, but then Chihaya's mom says that they should buy Chihaya
her own Hakama. Kana comes out to see her mom and Chihaya's mom and Chihaya looking at fabric. She tries on a purple one and her mom is shocked that Chihaya knows how to wear a Hakama. She tells Kana mom that she thought that as long as her daughter had something to do, she'd be fine. Even though her grades were bad and she sucks at everything. And yeah, and she's into that weird bear mascot that we only sometimes
acknowledge. Yeah, daddy bear. Yeah. Yeah. But then she's like, oh, it feels like I've been kind of ignoring my daughter this this whole time if I'm only now getting her Hakama. Yeah, I think. But then she insists that she wasn't ignoring her and that she believed in her card playing the whole time. Oh, laying her mom off the hook, just like everyone does for her. I mean, they've been fine since then. I guess they
only just started making a scrapbook. Well, she only just started getting her name in the paper. All right. OK, I guess finally she's accomplished something. Did you ever get in the newspaper for anything at school, Joe? No, no. I mean, like the Dean's List or something, but. Oh, if my parents were. Happy about that. I was like, oh yeah, I was not in sports. I just kept my own newspaper. No one kept it on my behalf. It's just like, look at me. Anyways. Kada and Chihaya
go on to try more stuff. Kada's mom tells Chihaya's mom that it's all good. It's hard to give your kids space to learn and grow. Later, Chihaya and her mom leave. She got the expensive one, the purple one that she tried on earlier, which I really liked, so goodbye. Her mom thinks that she can wear it to nationals, but she's not going to because it's way too hot. At home, Chihaya plays along with a recording of last year's Queen game. Her sister comes into her doing that and
is like, oh, I guess you're back to normal. And then she decides that she's going to try to be an actress again because the inspiration. Because it's cool. Because that textbook and the garbage. She throws it away. Dude, those things are expensive. Resell that. Come on. I guess it's not as dramatic if you just go and sell it online. I guess. No, not at all. It's like when people throw their antidepressants off of a bridge or something like, I don't need this anymore. And it's like,
guys, you really should do that. It's not how you deal with that. Let's see. Uh, the Carter club is studying again and upstairs, the concert band starts playing. Uh, everybody comments that they're playing sucks and kind of starts humming and she's like, Hmm, sounds kind of frenetic. No, it sounds more impassionate, which she says,
which is the word she high of Buddha. The word that is the one that the card that she high takes and also is the name, but it has a B instead of an H. Don't, don't think about it too much.
She high is like, what's impassionate. what's the word in passion have to do with the word frenzies and kana is like what we're in the second season of this tv show and you still don't understand the meaning of the title and then kana explains the meaning of the title which is that okay okay is a historical word that doesn't have a fixed meaning. It's like a decorator around certain poems. But there are theories that it means impassionate. But some say it means frenzied. Either way, it
means some types of intensity. In the impassionate definition, it resembles a power and perfect balance, while a frenzied definition is like the opposite of that, out of balance. We learn about this word for a long time. Yeah. Did you like the fourth wall being broken? Well, no, not quite. I always love the fourth wall breaks where they're like, what do you mean? We're on episode 13. You still don't know this? Yeah.
It's good. It gives it a surreal quality to the show that already feels kind of surreal to me. Uh huh. Yeah, surely goes into it. That's because she likes poems, I guess. Entire words, just lost meaning. We probably have that in English. I just don't care about them. Listen if they can't retain their meaning over time. They obviously weren't that important. Oh That's yeah. I like that survival of the hit is the fittest, baby Or cake vernacular, what are we doing here? Knock
on the window. It's the concert band and they've come to play a little concert for the Carter Club as a thanks for letting them use the room They all thank them and everybody has a good time, even though they play way too many verses of this song. But whatever. What do you think about this? They come here and play the school song. Stounding song. Oh, the school. Exciting. The thing is. There's like a bajillion better songs to play than your school. Your school song
always sucks. It's always some shitty ballad. It sounds terrible. You know what I'm saying? Well, they're trying to like be like a music. Zawa card club or something. So it's very school pride related. I hate that. You should go in and play something hype. There are hype orchestral songs. I'm the tiger. Now you should play some hype stuff. You know what I'm saying? You should play like the planets. You could play. You could play Entry of the Gladiators. That's a good one.
That's the circus sounding song. You can play some scary stuff Play like you play like Baba Yaga, that'd be good You could play if you're gonna play a long song You might as well just play Bolero just have your have your snare drum Just do that for 20 minutes or whatever that songs that song is really good But also God playing it must suck. Anyway, I've talked too much about music We cut to nationals it's not we're at the tournament hey guys Remember that training arc?
Me neither, Red Nationals. We have a cute scene where they are hanging out at the little hotel they're staying at and Sumire is about to go to sleep in makeup because quote, you never know what might happen at night out of a school trip.
But the coach is in the room with her and she's like nothing is gonna happen and severe is like this sucks What kind of trip has nothing happened and I agree Sumire we should have had more We should have had more we didn't have 30 more scenes like this one where they're all just hanging out You know how many we get in the next two episodes zero Hmm yeah, I need her to become the main character. I need her to usurp Chihaya Now you say Haya will get by a bus or something.
She does try to put the work in though. So she asked she Haya if she likes anyone, you know, like, I have written down here like at night. No, she says that you think about at night. That's what she says. She is like, well, you know, sometimes at night, I think I wish I had Shinobu's number and the comments to get mad at her. They're like, dude, we're talking about love, not like who you're obsessed with. Um, but then she starts
thinking about errata. Of course. I cheese toast we got the Tai Chi being toast walking in the hallways. He sees she hi a calling errata on the phone He won't be at the tournament for two more days because his school doesn't have a team So he's not shown up for the team competition. He's just showing up for the individual matches Tai Chi hears this and leaves because he gets owned my boy who has done nothing this episode It shows up for the last five minutes to get
annihilated. I'd love it when this happens Chi Hai tells Arata that he should start a club at his school, but Arata is like, I don't want to start a club. I just want to get better. That's a waste of time. But she's like, fine, I'll get better too. And then I'm going to beat Shinobu and we get a shot of the Omi Jingu as we cut to credits, which is the temple that the tournament's
being held at. There's also the part where the girls are talking, but she makes her take the makeup off and we see a very Like, like basically, she's pretty plain looking without her makeup is the takeaway from that. Or she puts so much makeup that she looks a lot different kind of thing. Yeah. So I bet she is not wanting anyone to see that. But. We still love her. We have our champion of the show. I like her for her personality and the fact that she's like a little
like a ridiculous cartoon woman. And also, she's somehow still the most normal person there. Yep. Yep. It's great. Yes. This was an episode that was mostly about Chihaya and her mom, and I liked that. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, yeah. There are some nice in these episodes, like little takeaways for characters, at least. More of these episodes need to happen. Yep. Unfortunately, we just don't get a lot of downtime. It'd be nice to get that. More. These are the only episodes in this trio
that is like that. Yeah. Tai Chi gets obliterated at the end here in a very funny scene. That's like what we say at the end of every episode. I know. It's so out of nowhere. They're like, oh, Chi Hai, are you into anyone? Like. How has Arata not come up yet for Sumire? I mean, I guess maybe no one said anything. Oh, yeah. Actually, wait, has Satomo and Kana even met Arata? Uh, I feel like he was like, right. Cause when she passed out at last year's national team, whatever
she brought, brought her over to him. So I don't know if they were still like in the match. Yeah. Well, they were like, they didn't, they didn't go talk to him. So I don't think. Yeah. I don't know. I think they've like seen him. They just haven't interacted with him. Uh, I'm sure con well, Connor has clocked what's going on, but, uh, Yeah, we need to add like a most pitiful
character ranking once we finish. I mean, it's just it's just Tai Chi every oh you mean across all shows Yeah, yeah, I still feel like it's just Tai Chi across the board. Who's gonna be more pitiful than him? Well, not more, but I mean Kazai Haya for a long time we were like that poor boy cuz she's so dense and That's true Yeah, so but then he started just being pitiful on his own in season three. Oh, yeah And I felt,
I felt less bad for him at that point. Yeah, no, Tai Chi is just a nice guy who's just getting wrecked. Oh, I can't wait for Sumire to learn about Arado. That's going to be good. She's going to be like, this is my chance. That'll give her like, yeah, extra like, yeah, like motivation, like there's an opening, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, that's what I'm waiting for. Cause she just doesn't really, all she does is like shallow
interactions with him. you know it's just they don't have anything to talk about looking at him i know so hopefully she like they learn more about each other at some point yeah this will be good i need them to like team up and go like tail chihaya and errata on a date you know what i mean like they're both wearing little disguises that'd be fun that's the kind of things i want disguise yeah oh she's like check out what i
can do with makeup Like totally different. Now the Tai Chi would be too mopey the whole time. Yeah. Maybe her and Kana maybe. Yep, that's all I gotta say about this episode. It was pretty good. Yep. Yep. And now we're back to it. Episode eight is called What Shines Over Mount Mikasa. We open on nationals. It's time for nationals. Here we go. Tournament time. You thought we had downtime? You're wrong. Nationals, baby. Chi
Hai is like... Wearing 10 cooling packs to keep herself from passing out from the heat, but she's like, it's cool. I'm not going to wear the Hakama this time because I passed out last time. Sorry, mom. You just got the Hakama though. Yeah. Also, I feel like she got a purple one. I think she would look better in red. I like the purple one because I like purple. I feel like this con is color. Yeah, but. Whatever. Anyways. Elsewhere, Sumire has to stop. Tsukuba from taking creeper
pics of girls because I hate him. He's like, hey, come on. Only some of these are of girls. Other than more of the building, too. And he takes some pictures of the buildings. I don't like that she just became his keeper. Oh, yeah, I guess because they're the two newbies. So even if she doesn't really like him, she feels some kind of camaraderie with him being like new to the club and dynamic. They need to fire him. They need a rata to replace him. God, imagine
how much better it would be. No, poor Tai Chi would be like... Imagine. Oh, but we'd have the drama every day, dude. Oh, man. No. Nishida shows them the new, the team, the new shirts that his sister made. They say winner is in huge text, but in the corner, in tiny text, it says second place. They're second place winners. They decide to wear the regular shirts instead. This was a pretty good gag. His sister is very funny.
Mm -hmm. Tsukuba makes Samiri a bunch of, oh no, makes Samiri take a bunch of pictures of him to send his brothers, and in the text he says that he's gonna be playing, which is probably untrue. So he's still lying, because we have learned nothing. Yeah, because we hate him. Because we hate him. And he's gonna give us more and
more reasons to. We go to the first round. And Tsukuba is starting in the place of Tsutomu because Tsutomu is going to be scouting the other teams with Sumire while Tsukuba handles the first round because we're not that worried about round one. Well it also says that Tsukuba is like basically caught up to his skill level. Oh yeah he's like he's good enough. The two of them head off. The two of them by which I mean Tsutomu and Sumire who are going to split up and search for clues.
The first round is about to start and Retro comes over to taunt Tai Chi. It doesn't work because Tai Chi is already ready to rumble. Also, he needs to prove himself to the girl he loves, which is what he's going to do instead of. Why are they doing this to Tai Chi? Anything else? This is his rival. Oh, yeah. Also, his rival has to be Retro, a guy he hates. Yeah. I, poor Tai Chi man. It's just L. He just was gifted with L, L, L. With a lot of birth. It's hard
not to be like up for that. It's hard to be like, you know how your mom says to stop hanging out with these people? Maybe she's right. Maybe she's onto something. Maybe your mom who sucks was right about this. Something about a broken clock being right twice a day. I don't know. Anyway. Yeah. We see that their team has matched up against Chiba's International School of Information Sciences. And they're all like, wow, foreigners play Carta.
That's crazy. Sumire goes off to scout an all girls team, but all she has is a bunch of names and she's like, okay, but I don't know who any of these people are. How am I supposed to know who I'm supposed to watch here with just a bunch of names? And then a clumsy girl bumps into her and it turns out that she's the ace that Sumire is supposed to watch out for. Also, some weird guys are here and it sucks. Also, this girl is like every trope wrapped into one human being.
And Sumire is like, what the hell is happening? It's great. I like this part. It's funny. We did see her in season one. We just didn't really learn about her. But she went against the chick who was like, Nishida's sensei's wife. She lost in like the qualifying round for the Queen's match or something. So she's like the third best. Yeah. So this girl was beat by her. Yeah. But yeah. She's weird and she's surrounded by weird guys, which sucks. I'm not gonna like it. We
have to meet those guys again. Elsewhere Satoma goes to scout the other players and they're all intense because those are the winners of last year's team tournament. Chihaya's team is up against foreigners and no one has ever seen a black person before. Kana is horrified because their opponents are wearing Hakama's while she's wearing normal clothes. She's like this is incredibly embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as Chihaya who's just crying uncontrollably. I thought this
was funny. We hear she's like, oh, she's just crying that foreigners had reached the hearts of people that aren't Japanese. And. Yeah, I thought that was funny. We hear some of the worst English I've ever heard. Oh, my God, because it's also the worst English Tai Chi's ever heard, and he calls them out on it with his own better English and accuses them of actually being able to speak Japanese. And they're like, well, shit. We can't all speak Japanese. We were just doing
that. We were just pretending to be foreigners to freak you guys out. Most of us have lived in Japan our whole lives. And it turns out that she was just crying because she's happy that card is played by not just Japanese people. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's funny. It's the English was horrifying. But this is all every time in anime. This is how it sounds it always sounds like such a struggle like they're Suffocating to death as they're saying their words in English.
There are clearly certain times in In anime where they have voice actors that actually know how to speak English Versus ones that they're just kind of like telling them what to say so like you never really know because like sometimes you'll hear a person that's like oh, they're supposed to be like They lived in the States for a while and they'll speak broken English and everybody will act like it's good. So I feel like this is a really good fake out on a meta
level to have them say all this stuff. And I'm like, wow, this is really bad. And then Tai Chi's like, that was really bad. I was like, oh, okay, cool. So I actually really liked that bit. It's pretty funny. Yeah, yeah, that was good. But sometimes they'll have actors that also can speak English and they sound totally normal. They sound like they're... you know, have British accents or whatever. So kind of all over the place. I just read the next line or one of the next lines.
Anyway, time to play a normal game, except the media is here to check out the foreigners. They're all like, wow, isn't it great? We can have a little like local news story on it. Their opponents are all doing weird shit, though, like lighting up the cards by like second syllable and like doing a bunch of like nonstandard things, because these people just haven't really played that much. So they're all doing their own thing. Play starts and Tsukuba is scared of black people.
He's so big and strong He says as my eyes roll into the back of my skull giving me another reason to hate this kid Yeah She just like what's up with my opponent there are they like Vietnamese or something? He can't really tell but then he notices a car It's a textbook next to him and he tells his team just to play like normal these guys are just kind of fans of the game They're
not like seasoned players. So it's gonna be fine They play and the foreigners are just happy to be here and meet some people who also like Karuta. Nishida is inspired by how they don't really follow standard strategy. Anyway, Chihaya's team stomps them and they're sad about losing. They also, at the end, see Chihaya's team writing a message to them in English. And they're like, oh, it's that's so nice. I want to come back
and play next year. And everybody has like some international solidarity or whatever, even though these people basically have just lived in Japan their whole life. So I don't know. Yeah. Also, Chihaya has the marker. I'm like, there's no way she knows how to write in English. Taichi is directing them. Yeah. So this was kind of fun, I guess. I didn't like the weird racism, but other than that, you know, anime pretty, pretty usually kind of racist about black people.
Yeah. Not a little better over time, but still pretty bad. I really hope I haven't watched the newest the newest season of Fire Force, but I hope they stop being racist in that show. Yeah, maybe. Also, at DreamCon, Magdy Stallion announced, I think she's in an anime or making an anime or something. So that one should be done, right? Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. I mean, other ones aren't like, you know, there are ones that are way better about it than others. So it's not like across
the board. It's just not atypical. Yeah. Anyway. We see Arata being dropped off early because he lied to Chihaya. He is here to come watch them a day early and he walks up to the shrine when a hand reaches out to his shoulder and who could it be? Oh wait, it's Shinobu looking real freaky as we cut to credits. Yeah, she does not look cute here. Shinobu's here! I sure hope she's gonna be normal and not a weird freak in a way that is not... in a way that's bad. Endearing.
I want her to be fun. I hope she'll be fun. Do you think she's gonna be fun? Maybe she's just not fun with Arda. Yeah. So could be that. Anyway, what do we think about this episode? I mean, it tries to end with like a feel good, like, oh, you know, despite different blah, blah, blah, whatever message. But it was just like, oh, here's another like throw away set of characters we're
never going to see again. But I guess I can't just be like we won our first whatever number of matches without showing anything from them Yeah, what do you think so I like I like one -off episodes like this I wish they would have done something with the international team being international and not just well The black guy sure is big and strong. I wish they did something else besides that Yeah I feel like there are
some opportunities to do some other stuff. So I feel like it was a little bit of a waste of opportunity, but it's still fine. Yeah. All righty. That's it. I don't really have any other thoughts about this episode. Oh, but speaking of thoughts, the next title. Oh, yeah. Episode 9 is called My Only Thought. We open on where we left off last time. Arata looks back at Shinobu and he's
like, uh, who are you? but then he recognizes her mole and is like oh it's shinobu man i didn't recognize you because you look so different from the queen match um and she cries and he's like hey man chill like it's it's you know it's cool um she says that he was the last person she lost to four years ago maybe he'll beat her again and she's like hmm yeah she's she's like baiting me and it's like Getting mad or taunting me or
something Arana plays it cool though. He just laughs and asks her what she's doing here individual games are tomorrow and she's here that she's Or she says that she's here to visit the shrine and then she's gonna go watch like a plane glider contest that happens This is great so random obviously I'm here for the plane gliding contest Yeah, it's like you're not here for the team tournament and she says that that's only for people who don't love Carta Which is not even
a good like sick burn. No, it just means nothing Then she walks away Arata reflects on this as the Opie players This is the most began of shinobu this episode. I'm disappointed. Yeah, no, I do we get her one more second and it's funny Yeah, we do get extremely funny. I need shinobu She should just be in the show more, because like when we do see her, it's her outside of Carta is a delight. Her little weird obsessions with strange, bizarro things. Yeah, like I need her
to either be the mean girl or not. You know what I mean? Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. Or be a little weirdo. You know what I mean? She's got to be one of them. Yeah. Anyway. Go off. After the match, Satomu fills Tai Chi in on last year's winners. Five out of eight of their team are Class A's. Some of their players come out and one of the guys is really weird. I don't remember what he says to him. He's like, oh, you're taking notes. Something about how I'm
high. And then he like does his hair and the waves are like, oh, yeah, he's doing the thing. But I'm like, OK, cool. Uh huh. Back at the tournament, Shihei and Retro get into a little spat. Arata shows up and Shihei almost sees him, but then she turns her head and he's been dragged off by an acquaintance. She asked Taichi if she heard Arata and he's like, no, I didn't hear Arata. What are you talking about? Get your head in the game. Taichi wonders what it'll really be
like if Arata was here, though. Like, oh, what if my rival was here? But it turns out Arata was just... I feel bad for Taichi. Yeah, yeah, it's going to get worse. It turns out Arata was hiding from Jihai and he dragged his friend Murau off somewhere else. So like Arata was avoiding her. As I don't know, he just did that. Murau, which is the guy who won. that last tournament we saw Arada at earlier, the guy who's quit and
then he brought it back last season. Murau just assumes that Arada is here for Fujioka West, which is like the neighboring school because he's from East Side. And he's like, oh, yeah, they only have three registered players, which leaves them with no margin for error. Outside, we see. Fujioka West only has two other members here because the other one is stuck in traffic. Arata comes out because one of the guys on the team was one of his friends in middle school
who in that one flashback he punched. Remember that forever ago? We are reminded here. I'm assuming. They're down a guy, so they get the idea to drag Arata into their game. We cut to Fujioka West's game. They've dressed Arata up, having him wear a mask and removing his glasses so nobody will recognize him. It's the perfect plan. Without his glasses, though, Arata doesn't think he can
do much. But like, whatever. They just wanted to have enough people to play the match so their new member could play and not get disqualified. So like, it doesn't matter if you actually play or not. Who cares, Arata? Just be a warm body. The game starts. Elsewhere, it's time for Chihaya's team to play. Taichi keeps seeing Arata everywhere. Chihaya tells him to focus, because if Arata's here, she wants to show off how good she is, or how good they all are. What a thing to say
to Taichi. Haunted by his rival. Because Tai Chi is thinking of Arda as like kind of a rival in Carta because that's the only way to be a like to be a contender and she high as eyes for a romantic bond. And I don't think Arda at all thinks that he's just like a Tai Chi just gets to win by proximity. Yeah, Arada is just like, oh, yeah, Tai Chi is my friend. I played with a couple of times. Yeah. Back in Arada's game,
he can't do shit without his glasses. His opponent is kind of pissed to play against a guy who just like pretty much isn't doing anything every hand. But then Arada suddenly takes a card automatically. He's like, damn, I can't I got to control myself. I can't give myself away or people are going to recognize me. We get a flashback to that one other time he played without his glasses as a kid. Remember the one? Of course you do. We spent like three episodes on it in season one. It goes
on for a while. The other two players seem to be having a good time and Arata remembers the appeal he got to play. Which was basically that these guys weren't good enough to win tournaments, but they just wanted to play and have fun. Most of the people at their school just do individuals, so they never get to play as a team. Arata is frustrated that he can't help out his fake team. One of his teammates loses, which eliminates their team because they all needed to win to
pass. And they're all sad. And Arata thinks about how Shinobu said that team games are for losers. He picks up his glasses and puts them on, and his opponent is like, wait a minute, you didn't have your glasses on the whole time? Arata immediately takes a card, and then again, and then again, and eventually one of the refs recognizes that, hey, that's Arata! It's the... It's like the guy who runs the card of society he used to go
to. Of course he's going to recognize them because he keeps being like, oh, wow, his swing is just like R does. And oh, wow, he moves just the yacht. So and then eventually. And then that guy is like, hold on, he doesn't go to that school. And Arada starts making up for his 15 card deficit. And it inspires his other teammate who is staging his own comeback to. Arada wins by three and his teammate wins by one. But you know, they still lose the team game because they needed
to all three win. But you know, it was still a fun game and everybody thanks Arada. The ref shows up and yells at Arada. He's like, well, since I caught you in the act, I can't just let you go. And since we can't punish the team anymore, since they've already lost, you might be disqualified from playing in individuals tomorrow, he says. But that's not the end of our bad news. Elsewhere, we cut to the airplane gliding thing that Shinobu's going to, and it started raining, so it's postponed
until tomorrow, and she's bummed. She's just, like, standing there in the rain as they announce the thing gets canceled. Mouth open. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. Shinobu, use your weather app, girl. This should not be a surprise. For real. For real. Oh my god. Yep. And then the episode ends. Or Shinobu. But that's, I don't know. What'd you think? Cause this, right? Each episode had like a little like, ah, we, we, we feel good about Carter. And this one is like
the errata coming to appreciate team. And he wanted to play with them as kids, but now he's like the lone wolf. Yeah, I think this is good. I like this for Arata. I like him rediscovering how fun it is to play with other people instead of just doing it all individually. I think having that mirrored. I guess not mirrored, contrasted with Shinobu who just kind of sucks at having any social skills and is just a little weirdo is pretty good. I wish we got more of her. Yeah.
This ending, that was weird. Why? Because Shinobu is bummed? No, no, no, that's funny. Oh, because he might get disqualified? Oh, we might disqualify you for like, who is this guy? Who is this ref guy, Arata? Who the hell is this guy? You know this guy? You're friends with this guy? Right? Isn't the guy, I'm pretty sure he runs his society. He used to go to in the area that morale is a part of I think Mmm, uh would have known his
grandfather and stuff. Oh, yeah Yeah, um, I Yeah, I would be mad if this guy was like, oh we might disqualify you I'm like, shut the fuck up They just lost just yeah, like it doesn't matter It never mattered. It's just supposed to be a like car or the thing touched by camaraderie and open him up, set him up to be ready to come to Tokyo and play with the group. Even though I feel like it'll be so awkward if he did that. If he came to Tokyo and went to their school. Oh, that'd
be so good. That needs to happen. So uncomfortable. Yeah. Interact with people in a casual way. He's so well. He's just he just discovered what teamwork is like, what teammates remember what that's like, what it's like to socialize with people. Hmm. You know, we can't all be Shinobu and be mad at her and be sad or a little gliding competition. Birdman rally. Birdman rally. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously they have some kind of history.
I would hate this guy. I would never, I would never go back to the Cardiff side of the earth ever. I'd be like, fuck you. Pretend you didn't see anything. Yeah. This thing that doesn't matter. It means anything. Nah, I'd hold grudge. I can hold a grudge. Yeah. I'm a grudge holder as well. Yeah. But I also would not break the rules because
I'm a wuss. You're breaking the rules for what they'd like to help out all your buddies to be a good guy to rediscover the power of teamwork and you're gonna get punished for it You shouldn't be punished for good things. The only person you should be punished for good things is Tai Chi Who's constantly being punished by everything? He's not gonna be in the A rank thing cuz he's not an A rank Yeah, so they can't play against Arda. Maybe, okay, but it sounds like they can
rank up from these matches. They can, but you're not in them. Yeah, but like at least he possibly could reach ranking. Oh, right, I see, yeah. Though, for next time, because we don't have to wait around because we skip tournaments immediately. So we'll get the payoff immediately. How many more team games are we going to get? This is my fear. is they introduce too many teams. They introduce the weird girl team and they introduce the like ace team that won last year, who's full
of also weird. Yeah, that means we're having at least two games, which means I feel like all three episodes next time are going to be just tournament games. A singular match for 100 percent. And we're going to be and that's going to bring us to like halfway through the season. Yeah, yeah. When are we going to have time for the stuff that's good? I don't think we ever are. This is OK. Bin show, this is a bin show. I wonder if it feels like it drags in the manga. This
must be brutal in the manga. Are you kidding me? This must be like hell. Like waiting, waiting weeks to get like a slight update on a match. How can anybody stand this? It's the sports formula. I mean, we're watching three episodes a week, which is three times faster than if you just watched it on as it aired. Yeah, that's you imagine that. Now. Well, do they even I mean, I guess at this time they probably were but does they
ever get aired episode by episode aim? Well, I guess so Yeah, that's true simulcast and stuff. Yep. Um, imagine Yeah, well This is the hell is real billboard It doesn't end on like a pretty good cliffhanger, I'll say. The episodes have ended on better cliffhangers than before. Like having it show and the previous episode with like Shinobu showing up and like putting her hand on the shoulder. That's good. Uh -huh. Yep, yep. Oh, man. That's been good. We've learned
nothing about our characters. That's not true. Arana has learned the power of teamwork. Our characters learn things. We just didn't learn more about them. She hired her mom hang out, and that's fun. And she forgives her for the years of neglect. God, I don't think it was that deep. Maybe I hate anime. I don't know. Her sister was re -inspired. Misaki's mom was the worst. That was great. But that was so wild. It was like a different thing for me. You know what
I mean? Yeah. Oh, man. It's like, what if my mom had a hallmark ass arc happening? Don't get a lot of parent, like, time. Like, we, maybe, a lot of times at Shoujo, it's like, oh, we're cute little middle schoolers dating, and then it's somehow the one episode where, like, we make up the fact that they have parents comes up just for the sake of, like, testing a relationship
or whatever. Yeah. Parents are so not, I guess, I mean, I guess it's true that in Japanese culture, Children are very like independent from an early age, so I could see like their parents not having a strong of a role on like their outside of the home life. Yeah, but this is like, I mean, you know, if you think about like cartoons, we watch kids don't want to think about their parents. You know what I mean? What did we watch? I don't
know. The American dragon. He did even. Yeah, no, he had parents, but they were like just kind of there. You Kim Possible had parents, they were just kind of there. The Proud family had parents. That's because Oscar Proud was like club main guy, you know what I mean? But like kids next door, not really. No, not at all. Spongebob is all adults. I think it's just cartoon stuff. I think that's just cartoon. Like Teen Titans, they are all teenagers that live in a house together.
They don't have parents. Yeah. Oh, I saw a lot of Teen Titans cosplays as well. They're usually bad guys. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But in Raven's case? Raven's dad sucks. I guess Starfire's like surrogate dad was cool. Beast Boy's surrogate parents, the Doom Patroller kind of assholes. I don't think we learn anything about cyborgs, family. And then Robin's dad is Batman, who we don't talk about. Nope. Wait, so is that so within the DC universe, Robin that's in Teen Titans
is Dick? Yeah, it should be Dick Grayson. OK. I think. Gotcha. Mean, I don't know like comics original Teen Titans had like a bunch of members. I'd never heard of like dove or whatever Because there's that there's that DC live -action series that I watched a few episodes up Remember when DC has own streaming platform. I don't know if they do anything DC one where they said fuck and they're like, oh man, it's so gritty Good Their animated stuff is way better. It's more
about talky talky than yes. But yeah, that dove character was in that show. Did you did you watch my adventures with Superman? That was cute. I watched the first episode and I do like the art style. I think I'm just like Superman, the most boring Superman. He's like, what if what if he's like there's a nice guy? What if there was a nice guy? I want a funny guy. You want a funny guy. OK. He's not that you want like the flash. Yeah, yeah, I like those. Yep. You want like
a booster. I love kid flash. I can flash young justice. Oh, yeah. Oh. Okay, Wally West, is that his name? Yeah. The funniest person in G .I. for real. Nishida had some good one liners in season one, but I don't know. There's like things to laugh at, but it's not like characters are intentionally trying to be the funny person. Yeah, there's like gags. It's more like the crazy scenario. Yeah, it's more. Yeah. So I wouldn't say any of them are like the funny person. I
bet. Tsukuba? Tsukuba? I bet he thinks he's the funny one. Yeah. With his little weird ass face. I like him the least. I guess Sumire is our funny one. She is pretty funny. Yeah. Arata needs to be funnier. I don't think that's happening. I need him to crack some jokes. I'd just be the straight man. I guess so. I just want to protect Tai Chi from misfortune. I don't. I want it to get worse. I like it when Tai Chi's sad. Oh my god, allergies or something. Oh my gosh, all
right, all right, all right. Let's see where I close it out. If you like this, if you like this show, please rate us five stars in your podcast platform of choice and then tell all your friends, but mostly just tell all your friends, be like, hey, I'm watching Chihaya Furu in three episode bursts because I'm in like a unhinged person. And I'm not just binge watching it like it clearly was made to be. Well, that's not even true. It was made to come out week to week. So
it's even slower than this. But that's how you should watch it. Anyway Tell your friends to listen to us And leave comments on our stuff and if you have questions you can send it at show Joe pot at gmail .com Yep, I think that's it. What did we learn? Teamwork makes the dream work. Just check the weather app, Shinobu. Again, it's not like the weather comes out of nowhere. It's not like there's like a zero percent chance
this is going to happen. Bring an umbrella. She's just standing there mouth agape in the rain. Like a goofy ass little cartoon character, which is extremely funny. You don't have to do that. You can't be like talking a big game about how team games are for losers. And then you show up to the little gliding thing without an umbrella. Loser. You can't be the cool mysterious girl when you then go to Birdman Rally and like eat
a bunch of ice cream. And didn't they say she only lost or she only gained like 15 pounds or something? I don't remember how much. Well, I think they said like 15 kilos, which is like 30 pounds or something. Oh, OK. I guess that's significant. Yeah. People. of any race can live anywhere. Oh, my God. Don't be a flight of black people. Don't be racist. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. So that's that's a good one. Please do. Don't be like that. And yeah. Yeah. Don't do that.
I feel like we got a better one. Messages. I don't know. Like listen man, if you've known someone for like 10 15 years and you can't call in a favor Like they're gonna overlook that you joined your friends team for one match Then you just gotta burn that bridge that person is worthless to you After that many years of knowing them. They won't let you get away with anything What
are they to you? Nothing Go and post about them on social media Arda will have the most boring car Twitter feed good He's just a cartoon man destroy his whole career Would you stop as a cop this guy's a cop he's acting like a real fascist, you know All the rules matter so much even though the implications don't I'm dying here Joe. We have to wrap him down the stairs amazing and crying Okay Evil things to this man No, okay Joe escalates too much and catch you
next time. Really try to flick all your cards into him so you could try to like do a little maneuver where like a card slices his throat. My god John wick for he like cuts a guy he cuts guys throw it with a card just do that Just keep flicking him to it and like it'll make it like a look at him every time so like he knows you're trying to do this But he can't say anything because that would be ridiculous. You'd be like, I think
this kill me. Can you imagine? This would be credible The finale of season two